Concealment PvP: Anyone else stopped using Hidden Strike?

First off I know Jarring Strike and Hidden Strike go hand-in-hand for Concealment PvP, but to be honest my Hidden Strike openers with nearly full BM gear now have a massive damage range - anything from a pathetic 900 damage through to 4k but they are normally lower end of that scale. Hidden Strike is nice when it crits high but thats not too often these days in PvP. This damage range is pretty painfull so I wondered if just Backstabbing alone from opener would show more consistent and higher damage. It certainly does. BS does not hit anywhere near that low and its 5 energy cost versus Hidden Strikes 17 energy cost makes it very attractive for energy management. Even if BS did hit as low as HS the energy cost difference still favour the use of BS if you take the nerfed knockdown from Jarring Strike out of the equation.

Knowing that your Backstab opener is generally going to hit more than the classes signature opening move, along with all the other crap we now have to contend with - poor stealth and out of combat flag times, very poor defensive cooldowns that feel like they do nothing when used, overly long cooldowns on main abiltities that make us spam Rifle Shot way too much... - this is becoming the joke Advanced DPS class of SWTOR.

I've chosen my Concealment spec Op as my main toon and I am hanging in there but I'm slowly becoming soul destroyed over the direction this class is taking. The synergy in the DPS trees is all messed up, our abilities are on cooldowns that are too long, we have to spam our free cost abiltiy more than any other class in the game that has free cost spammable abilities, and I have never known a class so squishy when one of our defensive cooldowns is up and ticking. Its like is this cooldown actually doing anything, like you know, mitigating any damage?

And to top it all, what I consider is the class defining opening move that can only be used from Stealth (and should not cost any energy for that reason alone) now consistently, but ofc not always, hits less than BS which is a regular ability that only costs 5 energy.

Bioware, just what in the hell are you doing to this class and where exactly are you taking it? It feels really messed up right now and needs a serious overhaul. You brought Medicine up to where it should be and I now think that the tree is spot on. Time to do the same for Concealment and Lethality (and why-o-why doesn't Shiv have a 10 metre range in Lethailty? You could fix that easy by simply adding 3/6 metres to the 'Licence to Kill' talent.).

Bioware you are eroding what little fun is left in this class like a relentless ocean in a hurricane. Please stop.

Then once people stop playing it. BW will overhaul the class based on which class contributes most to their financial stability. i.e. Frost Ma... errr I mean Sorcs.

This ^^^

Plus to the OP I dunno how you work that out, there is the same range between min and max damage of HS as there is BS but HS has a tiny bit more min and max, same range though so no idea why you are getting such low numbers (might be your gear although as I agreed with my quoted post above its just OP's in general) you can only expect to see big crits on fresh 50's and not even that so anymore cause of recruit gear (although it still helps)

First off I know Jarring Strike and Hidden Strike go hand-in-hand for Concealment PvP, but to be honest my Hidden Strike openers with nearly full BM gear now have a massive damage range - anything from a pathetic 900 damage through to 4k but they are normally lower end of that scale. Hidden Strike is nice when it crits high but thats not too often these days in PvP. This damage range is pretty painfull so I wondered if just Backstabbing alone from opener would show more consistent and higher damage. It certainly does. BS does not hit anywhere near that low and its 5 energy cost versus Hidden Strikes 17 energy cost makes it very attractive for energy management. Even if BS did hit as low as HS the energy cost difference still favour the use of BS if you take the nerfed knockdown from Jarring Strike out of the equation.

Knowing that your Backstab opener is generally going to hit more than the classes signature opening move, along with all the other crap we now have to contend with - poor stealth and out of combat flag times, very poor defensive cooldowns that feel like they do nothing when used, overly long cooldowns on main abiltities that make us spam Rifle Shot way too much... - this is becoming the joke Advanced DPS class of SWTOR.

I've chosen my Concealment spec Op as my main toon and I am hanging in there but I'm slowly becoming soul destroyed over the direction this class is taking. The synergy in the DPS trees is all messed up, our abilities are on cooldowns that are too long, we have to spam our free cost abiltiy more than any other class in the game that has free cost spammable abilities, and I have never known a class so squishy when one of our defensive cooldowns is up and ticking. Its like is this cooldown actually doing anything, like you know, mitigating any damage?

And to top it all, what I consider is the class defining opening move that can only be used from Stealth (and should not cost any energy for that reason alone) now consistently, but ofc not always, hits less than BS which is a regular ability that only costs 5 energy.

Bioware, just what in the hell are you doing to this class and where exactly are you taking it? It feels really messed up right now and needs a serious overhaul. You brought Medicine up to where it should be and I now think that the tree is spot on. Time to do the same for Concealment and Lethality (and why-o-why doesn't Shiv have a 10 metre range in Lethailty? You could fix that easy by simply adding 3/6 metres to the 'Licence to Kill' talent.).

Bioware you are eroding what little fun is left in this class like a relentless ocean in a hurricane. Please stop.

Why wouldn't you use it? Knockdown, TA and poison ticks... just too good to pass up tbh, even if the damage is somewhat random at times.

Open with Backstab, then:
Shiv
Lacerate x1
Herp derp run around auto shotting.

No reason why you shouldn't open with Hidden Strike unless you are planning on Cloaking and second-opening with HS as another interrupt. If you are opening with Backstab more than 5% of the time, I feel sorry for you.

Hidden Strike provides 1 tick of Tactical Advantage. That alone is reason enough to open with it instead of Backstab. That extra tick gives you 1 more Lacerate. If you are hitting a poisoned enemy, that is one more Lacerate you get to fire that might replenish your TA and get you yet another Lacerate. Imagine the following two scenarios

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The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.